Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Is "More Jobs" Sustainable or Necessary in the Post-Peak Oil World?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Is "More Jobs" Sustainable or Necessary in the Post-Peak Oil World?

by Jan Lundberg from Culture Change. Although he makes a number of good points, I think that he omits the fact that so many necessary jobs (as well as unnecessary jobs) have been outsourced to cheap labor countries. Thus there would be plenty of productive work for Americans if they were brought back home. However if we had an economic system built around the principle of meeting the real needs of people rather than profit, there would still be plenty of work to do and plenty of leisure time.

What was required for a growing economy, that was supposed to uplift all of modern humanity, is at root a false notion for the manipulated public: the overwhelming majority must work for others to enrich the few so that all of society benefits through unlimited expansion. This problematic profit-scheme is failing to hold up, what with general economic uncertainty on the rise (apart from “Hope”) and the advanced depletion of easily extracted, cheap oil.